Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh on Sunday said the “strong rally” in the stock market shows “increasing investor confidence on stabilisation measures taken by the government”.
n a tweet, the premier’s adviser said the KSE-100 index was up by 14.9 per cent in November, which he said was the highest one month return after May 2013, adding that the index has increased by 36.6pc (10,500 points) since August 16.
The stock market rallied for the fifth week in a row in the outgoing week as bulls displayed no signs of fatigue. The KSE-100 index propelled by 1,362 points (3.59 per cent) and stormed past the 39,000-level after eight months to close at 39,288.
During November, the index had closed positively for a third straight month and gained 15pc, the highest monthly gain since May 2013.
In the outgoing week, trading started on a positive note, attributable to State Bank leaving discount rate unchanged, which bodes well for the local bourse. But the index took a plunge of 400 points the very next day as the Supreme Court took notice of the extension in tenure of the army chief.
Although the hearings continued to be followed closely by the investors, there was no panic. On the macro front, Pakistan saw a cumulative influx of $713 million in government securities through SCRA in November to date, taking total inflow to $1.2bn which helped shore up the country’s foreign reserves by $240m to $15.6bn at the end of the week.
